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by teekert 4126 days ago
After reading Glenn Greenwald's book, I supported https://protonmail.ch/, an encrypted email service based in the EU (Switzerland -edit: no it is not, should have said "Europe"-). It's currently in beta, I'm waiting for custom domain support and apps. The complete focus on "but Americans are protected" as an excuse for the NSA spying makes me actively seek out local services that are privacy aware. I use Telegram with encrypted chats for many conversations now. I found this service as an alternative to digital ocean: Transip.nl. I do wonder how my rights are when I pick an Amsterdam based data center for my droplet though. I know MS actively protected user data from Ireland which is good, whatever their reasons are. I also switched to using mobile websites in mobile FF instead of installing many intrusive apps. Mobile responsive website are often as good as apps and better for sharing links.
4 comments
desdiv 4126 days ago
My only gripe with Protonmail is that they're closed sourced. The good news is that they intent to open source it when they come out of beta[0], so I'll be switching to them as soon as that happens.

[0] https://twitter.com/protonmail/status/468759469006942209

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webjames 4126 days ago
mailbox.org seems like another EU (Germany) based email startup. Email is a very big hard-to-deal-with issue, however the Dark Mail Technical Alliance and services such as those already mentioned are taking steps to making email more secure.

It is interesting you mention Telegram, i have started using that with contacts of mine who have also adopted it, i'm not totally convinced it is secure, but does seem a better alternative to WhatsApp.

Further to this i've secured the domains i host content on, not because the content needs securing in terms of handling financial data etc, but because i believe that the wider encryption is used the harder it will be to operate global 'catch-all' surveillance.

ref: http://darkmail.info http://mailbox.org https://telegram.org

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Sami_Lehtinen 4125 days ago
If your Dutch is limited, I recommend https://www.transip.eu really excellent option to Digital Ocean.
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schappim 4126 days ago
Switzerland is not in the EU.
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teekert 4126 days ago
Correct. But at least it is "local" and not GCHQ/NSA oriented.
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